make-kpkg clean: how to avoid it?

I am playing with "compiling kernel the ubuntu way" (which is the same as debian way). It all works, but... suppose you want to try a patch to your kernel, possibly a little one. And you'd like to change for example the --append-to-version argument to identify which kernel is which. Now:

if I do not do the make-kpkg clean step the following make-kpkg protests and do not compile the new kernel;

if I do the make-kpkg clean then the whole kernel got recompiled (it issues a make clean) and I have to wait hours for a step that should be just a 5-minutes one.

Is there any guru on line that can extend the (very useful) recipe with an "howto update a kernel the {ubuntu,debian} way"?